Microsoft Announces Patches, while Oracle Slowly Increases Interoperability

Officials from Microsoft Corp. recently announced their intention to acquire PowerSet, Inc., in an effort to improve its search capabilities. In other news, Oracle Corp. announced it plans for integrating BEA products throughout its portfolio.

Focal Points:

• Officials from Microsoft recently announced its intention to acquire PowerSet. PowerSet is a company that focuses on search via natural language. PowerSet will become part of Microsoft's Search Relevance team. This San Francisco-based company will increase the capability of search by adding the ability to derive intent and meaning behind words used in searches. The PowerSet technology will focus on improving the clarity of returned search descriptions and improving the context between a user search and the way information is shown on web pages. Experton Group believes this will not significantly impact user's current preference for using Google, Inc. as their primary search engine.
• Microsoft is scheduled to release its next set of security bulletins and the patches to address them on 8 July. Officials said they will be releasing four security bulletins, but none of them will be ranked as "critical". Two of the bulletins will address Windows vulnerabilities, with one bulleting on Exchange Server and another on SQL Server. One of the Windows bulletins is for a remote code execution bug, the other is a spoofing bug. The Exchange Server and SQL Server bugs are related to privilege elevation.
• Officials from Oracle announced a "road map" for Integrating BEA technology throughout the Oracle product portfolio. The tools will be built around Oracle JDeveloper integrated development environment, as opposed to BEA's development stack. However, Oracle will use the BEA WebLogic Application Server at the core of its Fusion Middleware stack, since it is seen as being more mature than Oracle's similar stack. Officials said that some parts of BEA's tools, such as its service bus, will be migrated to JDeveloper over time. Oracle plans on simplifying Workshop solutions by eliminating all the BEA Workshop editions except the most powerful one, and then making that one free.

Experton Group believes Microsoft's efforts to improve its search capabilities are important, but are not likely to dramatically change people's preference for Google as a search engine. IT is also not likely to increase its ability to draw Yahoo!, Inc. into its product and service portfolio. While Microsoft is improving its transparency in security updates, constant vigilance for security exposures is needed. IT executives should look closely at Oracle's BEA integration strategy and develop a methodical plan for middleware integration.